Reduce Image Size Quickly: 9 Best Free Image Compression Tools

Optimizing images for websites and blog is one thing you need to start taking seriously if you really do value the future of your sites. There are many free programs, software, and tools (both online & offline)  to easily reduce image sizes without losing its quality.

1. Use http://tinypng.org/ for all your .png images

Many top web hosting companies will always recommend the already popular WP Smush.it plugin for self-hosted WordPress blog users who are in dare need of optimizing their blog images for faster speed and load time. This is an idea I will greatly support for a larger website, blogs, and forum who are using the WordPress CMS platform for their site.

Wp smush.it plugin works pretty great to compress images but not as well as the perfect online tool the guys over there at http://tinypng.org/ have provided to everyone for free without any option for a premium or paid plan.

Tinypng.org will not only serve for your post images but will greatly optimize your background images and most of those static files we use for our overall website or blog design.

On blogger blogspot powered sites tinypng.com works great by helping you compress even files as large as 1mb to as low 10kb, it will help reduce the sizes of those large background images while preserving the image or picture’s quality as well as the transparency.

I will recommend you also use tinypng.org free online image compression software to optimize the images for your individual post contents as too many images in a single post can affect the load time. Fashion, photography tech, and tutorials bloggers also need optimize their images as most of their individual post can contain as many as 10 pictures at times.

Update: Tinypng.com now works for .png and .jpg images. You can use for optimizing all your web graphics.

2. Shortpixel Image Optimizer

ShortPixel isn’t just an image optimizer, but one that can optimize PDFs and animated GIFs graphics as well. You can optimize up to 50 images at a go. This includes: .png, .jpg and .gifanimated images.

It comes with three optimization options. To wit: Lossy, Glossy, and Lossless image compression. You can test these three optimization options to see which works for you.

The link to shortpixel image optimizer is here.

3. ImageResize Optimizer

This is a lovely JPEG and PNG image compression tool. It works flawlessly for web images and doesn’t come 5Mb size limitation as with TinyPNG.

This tool works well for bulk image optimization. Here’s their official homepage.

4. Use http://www.jpegmini.com/ for most .jpg images

If lossless compression for all your jpeg images is of a deep concern to you, then you won’t waste another minute before hovering your mouse to http://www.jpegmini.com/ to download a better .jpg image compression and optimization tool that works offline and uses advanced techniques to render optimal reduced jpeg images.

Jpegmini.com have got both windows and Mac version and serves very well when it comes to reducing image sizes without losing the original picture’s quality.

5. JPEG Optimizer by http://jpeg-optimizer.com/

To me this is like the online version of jpegmini.com software that renders better digital photo compression and optimum resizing. You can easily use it for .jpg images by browsing for the image that needs be optimized and choosing from the already provided compression level ranging from 0-99 that you want to apply to the image.

A low compression level will result in a much smaller filesize but image quality will be lower. You can also re-size the picture if there is any need for that.

6. Compress now by http://compressnow.com/

Compressnow supports all widely used image formats helping you compress images Online easily and very quickly as well, all you need do is;

• locate the images from your computer, flash disk or any other storage media by clicking on the “browse” button
• Enter the percentage of compression you want from the uploaded images (lower percentage will always result to larger picture size as opposed to higher percentages that produces lower picture sizes with lower quality.
• Hit the “compress now” button to get the work done
• Monitor the new reduced image size created to confirm if it is suitable for your website
• Enter another percentage value and re-compress if you aren’t very comfortable with the look of the new picture
• Save the new picture to your computer and upload for use

Now you see how fast you can compress your images just within few seconds.

7. Smush.it™ by Yahoo Developer Network

You can always use Smush.it web image compression tools to optimize your images, according to the developers it uses optimization techniques specific to image format to remove unnecessary bytes from image files.

It is also a “lossless” tool, which means it optimizes the images without changing their look or visual quality.

Smush.it just like the others shows how many bytes you have saved by optimizing the images and also provides a downloadable zip file with the minimized image files.

8. Free Image Optimizer by http://www.imageoptimizer.net/

Image Optimizer software has got both the Microsoft windows software version and the online web version.

Just like the other tools named above, you can always use it to resize, compress and optimize your image files for faster page speed and optimal image attachments.

9. Reduce Images by http://www.reduceimages.com/

Reduce images is another awesome web app you can use to  reduce JPG, BMP, GIF and PNG images online, it also gives you the option to  select the size and quality of the new image.

Just like every other free apps contained in this guide, it’s end result is usually a  lighter image, easier to upload to websites, send by e-mail and sharing with friends.

Concluding Lines :

I have carefully outlined the best free 7 software, application or tools out there for you to compress your images losslessly without seeing those annoying adverts and pop-ups.

Other ones may not be able to beat this ones when it comes to reducing image size for optimized page speed. Most of the ones I deliberately ignored  are just used as a marketing strategy as you’ll always get disturbed with their annoying adverts, size limitation and a bunch of spam messages requesting you to make one premium upgrade or some other better features.

The ball is now in your court to start optimizing your images, after all this tools can work on WordPress, blogger, Joomla, Facebook, Gmail or any were at all even for offline uses.

Let’s take a little ride with more tips to make your website great and the net full of fun.